About this page: Kuhnke International maintains this list of geostationary telecommunications satellites. The list is primarily intended to cover the European-African-Asian area of the globe ranging from 35 degrees west longitude to 150 degrees east longitude. Greater emphasis is placed on satellites with capacity available for two-way telecommunications services, while satellites which are primarily used for direct to home television broadcasts may not be fully represented. The list does not contain satellites which are known to be in erratic/wandering orbits or have been retired by their owners.

We encourage readers of this site to submit additional information about the operational characteristics of any particular satellite. Of particular interest is information about notable third-party teleport facilities currently pointing at a satellite (please submit details with latitude/longitude and specifications of teleport), press releases from service providers announcing leases of transponder capacity or any news regarding operational issues with a satellite. Satellite owners are also encouraged to submit press releases and updated coverage/EIRP maps. Fleet owners operating teleport facilities are welcome to submit additional information about the technical parameters and capabilities of their teleports.

New satellites due to be launched in the next 24 months will be placed in the list alongside currently operational satellites when their owner announces a longitude. Recently failed on-orbit satellites will be maintained in the list for an indeterminate period, with as much information as possible provided about the cause of the failure and owner's replacement plans. In some cases government / military owned satellites may be identified by an approximate longitude location, marked as unknown, or identified only by their NASA SPACEWARN or NORAD/COSPARS identification numbers. The list does not track military satellites in low/medium height, Molniya/tundra or other non-geostationary orbits.

Do you have new information about a satellite? Has a spot beam moved or other technical parameters changed? Contact info@kuhnke-international.com and we'll update the page.

C-band payload controlled by Intelsat, Ku-band payload owned and operated by Horizons Satellite LLC joint venture with JSAT
Joint venture started by Panamsat and JSAT, inherited by Intelsat as part of 2006 merger

Known solar power / charging system problem on Afristar-1, possible outages during periods of solar eclipse (though not as severe as Paksat-1)

Commentary

Worldspace also operates AsiaStar at 105E primarily servicing radio customers in India. AsiaStar launched 2000-03.
Afristar-1 is due to be replaced by ground spare (Afristar-2) at same orbital location. May be launched in 2009 if funding permits.
Worldspace
filed for bankruptcy in US court 2008-10-17.

Originally located at 13E for direct to home TV services. Suffers from solar array degradation problem common to series of Hot Bird EADS Eurostar 2000+ satellites with Fokker Aerospace solar panels. Relocated to its present longitude in 2002. Equipped with 20 Ku-band transponders but power problems allow for the simultaneous operation of only 16.

Commentary

Onboard "SKYPLEX" system can multiplex multiple DVB signals into single downlink stream.
Was leased to Arabsat from 2002 to ??? and known as Arabsat 2D / BADR-2, now returned to control of Eutelsat as of 2008-September.

Shares 26E longitude with Arabsat BADR-4 (formerly Arabsat 4B) and Arabsat BADR-6 launched 2008-July
Badr 1 did not reach its planned orbit, when the upper stage of the Proton-M Briz-M launch vehicle failed. After evaluating a lunar fly-by maneuvre to rescue the satellite, Badr 1 was deorbited on 24.03.2006 over the pacific.

Shares 26E longitude with Arabsat BADR-3 (formerly Arabsat 4B) and Arabsat BADR-6 launched 2008-July.
Badr 1 did not reach its planned orbit, when the upper stage of the Proton-M Briz-M launch vehicle failed. After evaluating a lunar fly-by maneuvre to rescue the satellite, Badr 1 was deorbited on 24.03.2006 over the pacific.

Replacement satellite for BADR-1 which did not reach its intended orbit in 2006
Shares 26E longitude with Arabsat BADR-3 (formerly Arabsat 3A) and Arabsat BADR-4 (formerly Arabsat 4B)
Badr 1 did not reach its planned orbit, when the upper stage of the Proton-M Briz-M launch vehicle failed. After evaluating a lunar fly-by maneuvre to rescue the satellite, Badr 1 was deorbited on 24.03.2006 over the pacific.

Loral 2007 SEC form 10K (published 2008-04-30) says:We also own 56% of XTAR, LLC (“XTAR”), a joint venture between us and Hisdesat Servicios Estrategicos, S.A. (“Hisdesat”). XTAR owns and operates an X-band satellite, XTAR-EUR located at 29 o E.L., which entered service in March 2005. The satellite is designed to provide X-band communications services exclusively to United States, Spanish and allied government users throughout the satellite’s coverage area, including Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The government of Spain granted XTAR rights to an X-band license, normally reserved for government and military use, to develop a commercial business model for supplying X-band capacity in support of military, diplomatic and security communications requirements.

XTAR also leases up to eight 72 MHz X-band transponders on Spainsat, a Hisdesat owned satellite located at 30 o W.L. which entered commercial service in April 2006. These transponders, designated as XTAR-LANT, allow XTAR to provide its customers in the U.S. and abroad with additional X-band services and greater flexibility. XTAR currently has contracts to provide X-band services to the U.S. Department of State, the Spanish Ministry of Defense, the Belgium Ministry of Defense and the Danish armed forces, but the take-up rate in its service continues to be slower than anticipated.

Russian Ku spot beam capacity on the satellite also sold by Intersputnik (large transponder lease from Eutelsat?)
Shares 36E longitude location with SESAT-1 (Siberia Europe SATellite 1) also owned by Eutelsat.2Q 2009 will see the launch of Eutelsat W7 at 36E, W4 or SESAT-1 may be relocated after that date.

Thuraya UAE, located in desert along main highway between Sharjah and Fujairah

Owner's contact email and phone

???

Known issues / fault history

None

Commentary

Thuraya-1 suffered from greatly reduced electrical power due to fogging problem with concentrator-type solar arrays, problem not present in Thuraya-2 or Thuraya-3.
Thuraya offers mobile phone service from handheld terminals compatible with GSM networks and the proprietary Thuraya system.
The ThurayaDSL service offering provides up to 144 kbps Internet access via a portable laptop sized L-band terminal. The ThurayaDSL devices are proprietary to the Thuraya network and are similar in size to INMARSAT BGAN/RBGAN terminals.

SYRACUSE acronym stands for SYstème de RAdioCommunication Utilisant un SatellitE
SYRACUSE 3B satellite is a identical design to 3A.
The SYRACUSE program represents France's commitment to the NATO SATCOM V contract, in which 45% of the total capacity will be provided by the UK SKYNET series, 45% will be provided by the French SYRACUSE satellites and 10% will be provided by the Italian SICRAL satellite.

Emerging Markets Corporation has signed a deal for a significant amount of C-band transponder capacity on this satellite.
Yahsat is wholly owned by the Mubadala Development Corporation, a state owned investment arm of the government of Abu Dhabi.
Twin
satellite Yahsat 1B scheduled to be launched in 2011. Longitude location for Yahsat 1B to be determined at a later date.

Originally known as Intelsat 703.
Was scheduled to be replaced in early spring 2008 by NSS-8 which blew up on the launch pad 2008-January-30.
Now scheduled to be replaced by NSS-12 with 40 C-band and 48 Ku-band transponders at the same longitude location, mid-2009.

Shares common design with IS-901 through IS-907 all launched in 2001-2003. IS-90x series intended to replace IS-60x series.
Replaced Intelsat 804 at 64.0E, IS-804 was moved in 2003 to 176E provide south Pacific region services, IS-804 failed 2005-January.

Intelsat 2007 form 10K says:
In addition to our owned satellites, as of December 31, 2007, we leased capacity on the APR-1, pursuant to an agreement with the Government of India, Department of Space, INSAT Programme Office. Under this agreement with the Government of India, we may lease eleven 36 MHz equivalent transponders on APR-1 through May 30, 2009. We have the right to extend this agreement until the APR-1 has reached the end of its service life, which is currently expected to be May 2012.

China Orient says: "The TT&C Station of China Orient, with a team of high level , high quality and high efficiency, is located at Dongbeiwang, Haidian District , Beijing, about two kilometers away from Shangdi High-tech Development Zone. "

Singapore, also likely many DTH TV channels uplinked from Indian subcontinent.

Owner's contact email and phone

USA HQ phone +1-415-814-8100 , Singapore +65-6838-5122

Known issues / fault history

None.

Commentary

Originally ordered by Chinasat as Chinasat-8 for launch in late 1999, US export control regulations prevented launch of satellite on Long March series rockets. Chinasat reached a settlement with Loral in 2005 which allowed it to sell the satellite to a third party. Construction completed by Loral and ProtoStar with customizations for 98.5E market.
Expected service life 13 to 16 years, assuming configuration similar to other LS1300 spacecraft.
Occupies an orbital position registered to Russia/Intersputnik, agreement in place to use Intersputnik's location via filing with ITU.

DFH-3 and DFH-4 series satellites have exhibited a variety of anomalous on-orbit behaviors including failure to deploy solar panels immediately after launch, early total power system failures (as in the case of NigComSat-1 which ceased operations less than one year after its start of service).

Commentary

Expected operational lifetime 8 years as specified by Sinosat website.

Shares common DFH-3 bus design with:
Beidou-1 series low earth orbit navigation system satellites, BD-1A through BD-1D launched 2000 to 2007.
Beidou-2 series MEO navigation system satellites, BD-2A, planned launch series of 10 satellites from 2007 to ???
FH-1 / FH-2, (Feng Huo) Chinese military satellites launched in 2000 and 2006 , UHF military SATCOM (Ka-band and above Ka-band?)
ST-1 (Shen Tong) Chinese military satellite launched 2003-11-14, reportedly used for Ku-band military SATCOM with steerable spot beams.
Chinasat-6 and Chinasat-6A, first DFH-3 series satellites launched in 1994 and 1997. History of attitude control problems / early fuel exhaustion.